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Why Tom Friedman Is Wrong on Russia and Wrong on Energy

Tom Friedman asks: What did we expect from Russia? After all, we expanded NATO because we assumed that Russia will behave aggressively when opportunity strikes. High energy prices provided the opportunity and Russia behaved as we expected, with"brutish stupidity." It showed Georgia who's the boss in the near abroad. In other words, they acted in the manner we assumed. If you assume Tom Friedman is going to praise Western policy makers for using Russia's temporary weakness to improve NATO's strategic position, you'd be wrong. Friedman argues that Russia is merely acting according to form because we assumed it would. Debatable, to say the least. History certainly does not support such an ideological assumption.

Friedman goes even further. He argues that Russians elected Putin president because NATO expanded and not because of the economic disaster brought about the Russian government's debt default almost exactly a decade ago. 1998 Default Changed Some Lives Forever writes Moscow Times reporter, Maria Antonova.

The ruble dropped in value from 6 rubles to the U.S. dollar to more than 20 rubles to the dollar by year's end. People flocked to currency exchanges and banks, as well as stores, where they hurried to dispose of the cash that was devaluing before their eyes. Lines formed at employment agencies starting at 5 a.m. as people were laid off by bankrupted companies.

While the crisis changed the landscape of the economy 10 years ago this Sunday, it also was a personal story for many people, who learned hard lessons, started new careers or left Russia altogether. Interestingly, the crisis is a dim memory for many, blended together with the multiple, post-Soviet crises of Boris Yeltsin's presidency.

Actually, Russian papers were filled with articles commemorating that anniversary. It was not NATO expansion but the hubris and faulty advice of Jeffrey Sachs and company which caused Russians to equate democracy, capitalism with personal economic disaster. Low oil prices did not help Russians either though they were bound to be temporary.

Unfortunately, the same Clinton administration which moved swiftly to take advantage of the strategic opportunity to enlarge NATO failed to take advantage of the nineties boom to develop alternative fuels. Had the Clinton administration used the budgets surpluses of the nineties to prepare for the predictable rise in energy demand by investing in alternative fuels or even conservation, Putin would not be in a position to throw his weight around today.

Friedman does not mention this failure not because he is not aware of this it but because his solution to it has been proven to be ineffective. In column after column, Friedman argues that to prevent America from being held hostage by oil producers, it must follow in Western European footsteps and raise the price of oil artificially through taxation.

But did the high taxes make Western Europe more independent? Even Tom Friedman would not dare to make such an argument. If anything, Western Europe, especially Germany, is more dependent on Russia than ever. A lot of good their trust in"good" Russia brought them. The high energy taxes has been merely stifling Western European economic growth for decades. What does Friedman suggest they do now?". . . redouble their efforts to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas."

A businessmen involved in oil/gas exploration told me that his company is drilling in Poland and Austria. In other words, the Europeans, like many Americans, finally understand that the way to defeat King Oil is the way King Cotton was defeated, by increasing supply AND finding alternatives. In 1860 cotton was almost as essential not only to the American economy but also to the British and French economies as oil is today. The Confederacy counted on it to save slavery in America. Read the words spoken by Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina's in 1958 and think Putin and/or Ahmadinejad 2008:

Without the firing of a gun, without drawing a sword, should they [Northerners] make war upon us [Southerners], we could bring the whole world to our feet.

What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? . . England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton! No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King.

Then as now, Northern Democratic appeasers strengthened the hands of Southerners by agreeing with their analysis. They even questioned the moral superiority of Southern slavery to Northern"wage slavery." Yankees just want to dominate the South, has been their joint refrain. Had Tom Friedman been living then, he may have dismissed Republican abolitionism in the same manner he dismisses NATO democracy promotion, nothing but"pious blather". Fortunately, the American people refused to be bullied. They elected Abe Lincoln who proceeded to blockade the South, an action as damaging to the Western economy then as blockading the Straits of Hormuz would be today.

What did the cotton dependent superpowers England and France do? They refused to sell their soul to King Cotton. They simply developed alternative cotton supplies in Egypt and India to name but two places. Eventually alternative fibers were also developed though cotton is still a much used fiber. One thing cannot be disputed: The era of King Cotton was over and had its believers not been misled North American slavery may have withered away in the manner hoped by the Founding Fathers, without mass blood shed and destruction.

The greatest irony is that in 2000 Americans elected two oil men who understood precisely both the problem and what had to be done. Just read or listen to George W. Bush's May 2001 remarks on the subject of energy he made in St. Paul, Minnesota. He pointed out that America was built on cheap energy but failure to increase the supply of energy through drilling and the development of alternative fuels would means that the price of energy would continue to rise for decades. Moreover:

If we fail to act, our country will become more reliant on foreign crude oil, putting our national energy security into the hands of foreign nations, some of whom do not share our interests. And if we fail to act, our environment will suffer, as government officials struggle to prevent blackouts in the only way possible -- by calling on more polluting emergency backup generators, and by running less efficient, old power plants too long and too hard.

America cannot allow that to be our future, and we will not. (Applause.) To protect the environment, to meet our growing energy needs, to improve our quality of life, America needs an energy plan that faces up to our energy challenges and meets them.

Vice President Cheney and many members of my Cabinet spent months analyzing our problems, and seeking solutions. The result is a comprehensive series of more than one hundred recommendations that light the way to a brighter future through energy that is abundant and reliable, cleaner and more affordable.

The plan addresses all three key aspects of the energy equation: demand, supply, and the means to match them. First, it reduces demand by promoting innovation and technology to make us the world leader in efficiency and conservation. Second, it expands and diversifies America's supply of all sources of energy -- oil and gas, clean coal, solar, wind, biomass, hydropower and other renewables, as well as safe and clean nuclear power. Third, and finally, the report outlines the ways to bring producers and consumers together, by modernizing the networks of pipes and wires that link the power plant to the outlet on the wall.

Had Tom Friedman been honest he would have admitted that President George W. Bush was right, and he was wrong. Unfortunately, in this instance as in many others, his administration failed to translate that understanding into action. Our next president must be a man of action. He must also be able to craft the kind of bi-partisan legislation needed to secure action in America. The man who has proven his ability to do precisely that is John McCain but do not expect Tom Friedman to admit it, at least, not yet.